Take 2
Games announces Civilization Chronicles (thanks Frans), "the most
comprehensive civilization collection ever made" planned for release next month
for an MSRP of $69.99. The anthology will include extras like the Civilization
card game, a 96 page book on the series, a DVD on the creation of Civ IV, and
more, as well as the entire turn-based strategy series:

Compatibility with existing/future OSs like XP and Vista are the only real reasons why this would be worth getting, though many people probably already get their retro-civ jones from FreeCiv. Still, if they actually bother to do the ports, it's a nice effort, though I'm not sure how many people will really feel the need to get EVERY Civ game, when each entry is usually an evolutionary step up (though I haven't played 3 and 4, and I hear that those are different or broken in different ways from older Civs).

No SMAC/X, though, that's disappointing (or it would be if I still didn't own my copy). I'm guessing EA still owns that.

Who do they think will buy this package? The Civ addicts already have all the civ games they need, and new players certainly don't need the entire collection.

Besides, Civ isn't the type of game where you would play the entire series from start to finish to get the entire story. Each game in the series is pretty much infinitely replayable, and if you have the one you like, there's no point in getting all the others, since you won't play them much. I own II and III but I've been playing IV lately and would never think of firing up the earlier ones now.

I'd only play Civ and Civ 4, and I have those. Civ 2 and 3 never struck me as worth replacing Civ 1 for.Since I already have Civ and Civ 4... I'll skip. But if it goes down to $20 at any point I'd probably pick it up simply out of love for the series.